Science is pretty clear on this one: love brings healing and wholeness. Fear, anger and doubt bring compromised immune function and unhappiness. So for your sake, why not add more love to your life in the New Year? 

We know from lots of studies that living in a state of peace and love and happiness strengthens our body’s ability to fight disease. The research is so consistent and prolific that most accept it now as common knowledge.

But we forget. We get politically fired up, or fired up on a basketball court, or fired up at a co-worker or neighbor. This is where the research can be a bit tricky to understand.

Research seems to suggest that getting “fired up” or angry isn’t a bad thing. However, if we blow a gasket on a daily basis, or if we hold our anger in and act like everything’s great all the time, then our bodies can pay the price. So it’s not anger itself that’s bad for us. It’s explosive or suppressed anger that will cause physical problems.

Same for sadness and fear. We all have regular occasion to be sad or scared or doubtful. These emotions are part of life. Problems arise, though, when we completely avoid these more difficult emotions, or when we get stuck feeling one for long periods.

Sure, there are times in all our lives when we seem to get angry a lot, or we just can’t shake the blues. But the healthier we get, the less fear, anger, doubt and sadness linger.

All emotions deserve a place at the table. Just make sure it’s you sitting at the head.

With practice, each of us is capable of naming individual emotions as they rise up. And mastery comes when we see each emotion simply as a wave that has splashed up from the ocean of our minds. We remain in peace as each feeling crashes the surface of our thoughts, knowing that soon it will return to the deep and quiet ocean it came from.

Our job is to watch these emotion waves rather than become them. When we become each individual wave or emotion, we can get tossed about. However, when we simply watch each wave, we stay calm like the ocean deep; like the deep waters of the still mind.

When we practice this emotional witnessing, we return more quickly to the peace and love always available to us and in us.

So to help add a little love to your New Year, consider trying one or two of these:

• Put your hand on your heart, and feel your own heart beat.
• Feel your lover’s heart beat.
• Make a donation.
• Get a massage.
• Give one.
• Send a card to someone who could really use it.
• Build something; bake something.
• Commit to doing something special next week that you really enjoy.
• Laugh hard.
• Sing.
• Let someone love you in a very specific way.
• Say, “I love you,” with conviction.
• Send loving thoughts to someone you don’t understand.

Here’s to more love, peace and joy in 2016.